


neither he nor his mirror knows the other is there

by Mattition



Series: I am creation both haunted and holy [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (mentioned) - Freeform, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Stranger Avatar Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:55:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28204209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mattition/pseuds/Mattition
Summary: So make peace with your double. Do not be tempted to draw swords or guns. We can get along.
Series: I am creation both haunted and holy [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2092089
Comments: 7
Kudos: 37





	neither he nor his mirror knows the other is there

**Author's Note:**

> CWs: Introspection (tm). Stranger-typical bad brain stuff (??). Jon's canonical family loss. 
> 
> Title & summary are from [ Ep. 19A](http://www.nightvalepresents.com/welcome-to-night-vale-transcripts/2013/3/15/19a-the-sandstorm?rq=19a) of Welcome to NightVale!
> 
> I regret to inform yall that I am stranger kin.. I wanted to write something that felt like my lonely ch study, but this is really just.... soft core porn but without the porn and plus becoming an avatar. schmoop for Becoming.  
> [i do have a [ stranger playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7KSsETT5S0wRSUePRevSPz?si=cjguzUUuSCK9wRb49YMB8A), if that's your steez lol]
> 
> I am a fan of Jon being a performer... is he an actor? a dancer? sais pas! we'll never know, I suppose.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy the read & enjoy the rest of ur day/night :)

He is looking in the mirror. He does this often, as people do. Does his hair, brushes his teeth. Just your average, normal amount of looking in the mirror. 

He is looking in, but he is not looking out. Who is that, on the other side of the glass? It's not him. It has his face; light, almost unnoticeable pockmarks spattered across his cheeks, two moles on his jaw. A colon: listen to this. It looks so much like him. 

He blinks. It blinks. Or maybe it doesn’t. What does that thing do those brief moments he closes his eyes? Does it reach its hands out? Does it hate him? Does it need his _help_?

He blinks again.

That is him on the other side of the mirror.

Of course it is him. He huffs and leaves the bathroom.

.

He is in the dressing room. Curtains open in half an hour and Céline is slathering silver paint on his face, chatting idly about her boyfriend's new dog. She showed him a picture. It is a cute dog. Her reflection belongs to her. At the very least, they are in sync. Her reflection is content. His...his is not _dis_ contented. Its eyes are lidded low as Céline's reflection slathers face paint on it. It stares at him. He stares back. It is _not him_ and he wants to look away, he wants to leave the room, he wants to die. But it is only watching. He turns his eyes back to his libretto. He’s got a dance solo that he’s nervous he’ll miss the cue for. Céline says something to the tune of a joke. He chuckles a bit. She smiles, big brown eyes crinkling. Formulaic. Safe.

He does not look back at the mirror.

.

He is walking to the metro station. His train is never on time and he is always early, so he is not rushing. He walks past the shiny window of one shop or another. The man on the sidewalk is him, huddled against the thick, cold rain. The man in the reflection is not him. That man is wearing his coat, and his dark green boots, and has the lumpy scarf Georgie knitted him tucked into the collar of its coat. But it is not him. The two of them stop in tandem. He looks at the window. On his reflection, the winter gear looks casually put together, and the shabbiness looks rather editorial. He knows this is not because he himself wears it well. There are two happy mannequins in the shop window. And there is the reflection. It looks at him. It is not _his_ reflection, though he knows that it belongs to him. He is unsettled, just a bit, a tug of unease just behind his sternum. The reflection does not feel, so it does not feel unsettled. He is going to be late. He nods cordially at the other man and continues toward the train station.

.

He is in the studio. He’s got to teach the girl replacing Steph their pas de deux. She’s not clumsy, but he is not enjoying himself. She is not Steph, which is the problem, of course, but this new girl _doesn’t_ have a broken toe, so she will have to do. He glances over at the other man. It has been dogging him enthusiastically over the past month. It is friendly. Familiar. Of course it is familiar. It has his face, though when he looks at it now, he knows it is slightly more handsome than he. Where his features are odd, its are interesting. Where his eyes are off-putting, its are soulful. His nose is crooked from a childhood injury, and its is roguish and strong. He is envious of it, so he does not like to look at it. He is sure that his reflection would have remembered the new girl’s name, or at the very least cared to seek it out. But he is not his reflection, so he cannot muster the energy to even check the call sheet. He cares little for her; he has just met her, and he has bigger things to worry about. His reflection goes through the steps happily and though it is not better than he is, it is comparable in such a way that makes him self-conscious. He shoves that feeling down, though.

There’s no reason for him to think that his reflection holds any ill will towards him. 

He has no reason to fear it.

.

He is in a fitting room. There are two of him in this small room. Two men sharing this space and his visage. He is not afraid of the other him. In a way, that man is comforting. He doesn't think he's crazy, surprisingly. He is fine. He is sane. His reflection looks better in these jeans than he does. He scowls at it. It cannot feel much, because being trapped behind glass dulls the senses, but it laughs at him. It is familiar with the things people do. The faces they make. It copies them. He feels some solidarity with it. He takes the jeans off. Tries on another pair. The other man is too tall for these trousers. Its ankle has a little star tattoo. He does not have a little star tattoo. He frowns. He is not sad, or scared, or anything of the sort. He is jealous. His reflection taps on its side of the glass. Presses its palm flat to the surface. The glass wobbles, just slightly. He thinks that if he touched it back, that could be his tattoo of a star on his ankle. He could look nice in the jeans that Georgie recommended. He shakes his head. He doesn't want to touch the mirror. His reflection nods in understanding.

Of course it understands.

It is not him. But it could be.

.

He is in the bathroom, again. He is holding a pair of scissors. His hair is getting long. It flutters around his chin. When he shakes his head, it swings around his head and face. He tries not to stim like that too often because it can give him headaches. He stole one of Georgie's headbands last week at rehearsal. It is slung on the door knob of his bedroom. It is a wide, serviceable band of black elastic. He wants to keep it, and he knows Georgie won't miss it. His reflection is staring at him. It has his hair. Or-- it has longish hair, with healthy, straight ends, bangs tucked and pinned just behind its ears. He would look good like that. His reflection mimics his expression. He stretches his face into a smile. Does it look natural on that man on the other side of the glass? He makes a cartoonish sad face. His reflection struggles to copy it, eyes lit up with rare amusement. It is not usually so emotive. He breaks and laughs, his reflection following along. It has the fifth chakra tattooed on its forehead. It is subtle, faint, like it has had it for a long time. 

He knows that it is new.

He's not sure what possesses him to touch the mirror. But he does, just a finger or two tapped to the glass. The other man stops laughing and gives him a confused look. It raises its hand to his. The mirror is sticky and firm. He cannot feel his double’s hand on the other side, though he presses. The mirror resists.

His double shakes its head. It is not time. That is fine, he supposes.

He does not cut his hair.

.

He is at a cast party, hiding in a weird little reading nook that has a mirror on one wall. His reflection is tired. He is tired, as well. He wants to leave, but he’s only been here an hour, and his rule is that he has to stay at parties for at least two, to make sure people think he is friendly. He thought his reflection would be reveling in the festivities, but it is swirling its cup of rum and coke with heavy shoulders. He wonders if the reflective world it lives in is much different than the world he lives in. Is the same song playing? Does it do different things than he does, when they are not in the same surfaces? 

Is _he_ the reflection, and _it_ is the real person?

It certainly feels like it sometimes. When he is held down by that immovable stone on his chest, when he cannot recognize himself, even without the mirror; cannot recognize the thoughts in his own head, he reminds himself. Be a person. Act like you are a person. He is a good actor, has been since his parents died, and his grandmother told him that he had to be brave. He is very good at being brave. At looking brave. He is afraid of everything, and he is especially afraid of what his real face looks like, under the brave mask. 

It is not just the brave mask. He is a riot of masks and stage makeup and costumes. No one has ever met him, and at this point, he’s not sure that he has either.

His double taps loudly on the mirror. It raises its eyebrows and crosses its eyes. He laughs a bit, and shoots down the rest of his drink. His reflection cheers him and follows suit. They’ve got a half-hour left at this damn party; they may as well make sure they’re both perceived as a friendly, if shy, person. 

.

He is sitting on the floor in his bedroom. He is staring out the darkened window. He has been for a while now, though he can’t seem to recall why he hasn’t got up and closed the curtain. The bathroom light is on, so his reflection is there, sitting casually. It is fiddling with its phone. He wonders if it has more contacts in that device. He wonders if it, too, keeps the conversation thread with a dead woman. If it is an orphan, too. Does it still have the last message its grandmother sent it, a picture of her tomato plant, which was growing particularly well that summer. He had texted her back 20 minutes later, but she was dead in the back garden by then. He wonders if he had called her to talk about her vegetable patch, would she be alive? Is it his fault she’s dead? He doesn’t even remember what was so important that he couldn’t talk to her then? His reflection squints at him, annoyed. It taps the glass. Jon reaches out and taps it back. It feels cold and thin, the thunk of his finger against the window is light and echoey. It reminds him of thinly frozen over ice. His double gives him a sympathetic smile. He smiles back. His double is the only person who seems to care for him at all. 

The only one who’s ever seen his real face.

.

He touches the mirror. He’s been buying them. He likes his reflection a lot. They’re friends. There’s a mirror on the wall across from the door now. It is big, and heavy, and he bought it for 20 pounds off a neighbour who was moving out. He’s got to meet Georgie for coffee, but as he goes to leave, he turns his head to look at his reflection. It looks tired, but it is still more handsome than he. It smiles at him. He wonders how it learned to emote so quickly. It just mimicked his face at the beginning. Now, it is giving him a weary smile and tapping gently on the glass, a friendly gesture. He’s not sure what possesses him, then, to reach out and grab its wrist. Its eyes go wide, and he can hear its intake of breath, because the glass is not solid, it is not jello, it is not a thin film of ice. The glass is not there. He _pulls_ and his double stumbles out of the mirror. They fall backward and they hit the ground and there is a long flash of pain, worse than anything he’s ever felt, white-hot and he is screaming, and he is trying to move, but he cannot, and he is, he is…

He’s fine. He sits up. He looks around the room. He is looking for his reflection. But Jon is nowhere to be seen. He looks at the mirror. It shows his apartment, sparsely decorated, but nice enough. It does not show him, or Jon, anywhere. He climbs to his feet. These jeans are a bit short on him. He hums consideringly, and bends to cuff them up so it looks intentional. There. That shows off his little star tattoo. He smiles to himself. His phone pings with a text from Georgie, asking where he is. He’s late for coffee, but he’s always late. He texts her back that he’s 5 minutes away. She doesn’t believe him, if the squinty emoji she sends back is any indication. Jon laughs. He doesn’t glance back at the mirror as he leaves his flat. There’s nothing there to look at.


End file.
